Leadership was a tragedy for Arafat's people, too

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Yasser Arafat's effect on global politics is one of the most
extraordinary stories of modern history. Arafat is the godfather of
this era of global terrorism and radical Middle East movements. As
leader of a numerically small people without a state or material
resources, his international impact is remarkable.

Using the Arab states as a force multiplier has magnified his
importance. Arafat claimed he could control the policy of Arab
states, that those who crossed him would face their wrath and those
who pleased him enjoy their largesse. The power of oil money and
the growth of Islamic-oriented politics seemed to reinforce this
power.

On one level this was pure bluff. The Arab regimes held him in
low regard. They did not consult him on their actions or heed his
threats. When it suited their interests they cut off his money and
killed his men. Yet in a sense Arafat's claim was partly true
because the Palestinian issue was indeed useful for the regimes. It
was the great excuse of Arab politics, used to explain why the Arab
world failed to progress politically, economically and
socially.

Arafat's brilliance at public relations allowed him to reinvent
himself periodically, to avoid responsibility for his defeats and
intransigence. As early as the 1970s US officials called him the
Teflon terrorist. He took advantage of others' wishful thinking
that peace could be obtained or their vanity that they might be the
one to solve the great Middle East problem if only they were nice
to Arafat. He showed how easy it was to fool the well-intentioned
West.

He also utilised from the 1960s onwards the power of terrorism
as a systematic strategy.

By targeting Israeli civilians he thought he would bring about
Israel's collapse. He grabbed the headlines, making the rest of the
world feel it was urgent to resolve such a violent issue.

But if Arafat had not been fighting Jews the impact would not
have been the same. He avoided direct anti-Semitism, instead
transferring traditional anti-Semitic feelings and stereotypes to
Israelis. Fighting in a land with which the world was obsessed
guaranteed attention.

Arafat's deeper impact was in proving some key principles that
were learned by imitators.

Terrorism is an effective tool for mobilising people if they are
willing to overlook the moral issues and rejoice in the deaths of
other ethnic groups. Terrorism had been used many times before in
history, but not really as a populist revolutionary tool for
building a movement. Arafat proved how politically profitable a
terrorist strategy could be.

He showed terrorism could be carried out without paying a price
for it. For years Western politicians have warned of the terrible
punishment awaiting terrorists. In fact, few of those who killed
under Arafat's command were jailed, and many of them were sprung
from jail by further attacks, hostage-taking or political deals.
Arafat proved that being a terrorist was much less riskier than it
seemed.

He made the Palestinian cause a central concern of the world
through terrorism, propaganda, courting sympathy, threatening to
unleash the wrath of the Arab and Muslim worlds, and ensuring that
the conflict would not go away.

He showed how much can be achieved through intransigence, the
power of saying no, and the constructive use of weakness. When
Arafat refused to make peace or stop terrorism he showed how he
could make his adversaries and bystanders give him more
concessions.

Arafat played a big role in the contemporary renewal of
anti-Semitism to its high traditional level. By constantly
portraying Israel and, albeit more subtly, Jews as evil, Arafat
returned this stereotype to international acceptance.

Equally, he succeeded in spreading anti-Americanism globally.
While it is easy to attribute Arafat's hostility to the United
States to its support for Israel, it was in fact part of his
revolutionary ideology from the beginning, going back to the early
1960s, long before the US even gave any aid to Israel.

Perhaps the single most powerful wider political effect of
Arafat was his contribution to maintaining the status quo in the
Middle East. By fomenting terrorism and anti-Western sentiment, and
especially by refusing to make peace in 2000, Arafat helped destroy
the incipient trend towards moderation in the Arab world. He gave
Arab dictators the perfect rationale to crack down. With the
Arab-Israeli conflict continuing, Arab rulers could explain that
reform was a Western trick and democracy an unaffordable
luxury.

Arafat has been catastrophic for Israel, which has lost hundreds
of lives to terrorism after taking risks and making concessions for
peace, and for the Palestinians, who might long have enjoyed peace
and an independent state under a more moderate leadership. That is
a tragedy.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in
International Affairs Centre and co-author of Yasir Arafat: A
Political Biography.